The Medical Mirror takes your pulse by analyzing your face

What is it? Did you know you could measure your heart rate through your face? If you did, you're probably a graduate student at MIT. Poh's mirror, using a web cam behind the glass, measures the amount of light your face is reflecting and uses it to calculate your heartbeat.

Why it's important: We'll be able to track our heart health on our own, without a visit to a doctor and tons of sticky electrodes or sensors (which are painful for burn victims and the infirm). The mirror will hopefully be able to tell us our respiratory rate and blood-oxygen saturation levels as well.

Why it's important: The silent, hands-free device is seen as no-fuss alternative to GPS devices or a traditional map and compass. Elliot told New Scientist that soldiers loved the technology "because they didn't need to put down their weapon or take their eyes off their surroundings."

The Stark Hand combines the utility of a hook and the aesthetics of a cosmetic model

What is it? A prosthetic hand that is both visually pleasing — it looks like a real hand, albeit a bit mechanical — and, yes, handy: it moves like a high-end electronic version at a fraction of the cost.

Why it's important: People with missing appendages, especially arms and hands, have a rough time choosing between something expensive and something helpful. The Stark Hand can bend to the user's whim, and a shrug of the shoulder can pick up irregularly shaped objects like light bulbs with ease. By using cables and harnesses rather than electronics, Stark has put the full range of motion within the grasp of every amputee.

Trip Lingo makes learning a new language easy, and cuts down on awkward cultural mishaps

What is it? An app that makes it easy for travelers to learn the local "lingo," ranging from proper grammar and phrasing to slang words.

Why it's important: As it stands now, there are two ways to act when you are living, working or visiting another country: not learning the language and simply speaking English, or learning through exacting text books. Trip Lingo helps people learn the language the way it's really spoken, through colloquial translations. When you speak as the locals do, it opens up doors to cultural exchange that you never knew existed. As business becomes more globalized every day, we too should look to do the same.

What is it? A machine that uses engine heat to treat wastewater from boats, airplanes, trains, and RVs.

Why it's important: The ZLD system is like a miniature sewage treatment plant, but leaves behind no odors, solids, or other chemicals that pollute the environment. The technology uses exhaust heat to break down sewage and produce clean water vapor.

Inventor Notes writes: "Nassef's product eliminates the need for large holding tanks, creating more storage space for other needs, such as clean water or cargo. It also eliminates the problem of dumping sewage-holding tanks when there are no convenient places to dump them."

Siri integration became the iPhone 4S's main selling point and, for some, a life-changer

What is it? Siri is now an integral part of the new iPhone, functioning as a personal assistant that can do everything from set meetings to sending text messages and almost everything in between.

Why it's important: According to our own analysis, Siri can change the way you live your life, helping you take notes, set alarms, and find your way home by simply asking your phone. It will also function as the precursor for Apple products to come, including Apple TV, and may change the way we interact with our technology.

Lab-grown meat could solve world hunger and climate change

Inventors: Mark Post, a vascular biologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands

What is it? Real animal meat created in a laboratory using stem cells from leftover animal parts.

Why it's important: As the world's demand for meat grows, cultivated meat has the potential to be more efficient and less harmful to the environment than conventional livestock production.

Food researcher Hanna Tuomisto told Reuters that lab-grown meat "could be part of the solution to feeding the world's growing population and at the same time cutting emissions and saving both energy and water."

Xalkori and other genetically-targeted cancer treatments are now approved

What is it? A new treatment for lung cancer that can be especially effective for non-smoking victims. These newly approved drugs target proteins produced by an abnormal anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene.

Why it's important: Lung cancer kills more people worldwide than any other type of cancer. If the drug is as effective as the studies show (over half of the patients who used it saw their tumors shrink or disappear), it could help cure thousands of people in the United States alone. Xalkori will also be available in Europe, and will hopefully take a drastic bite out of cancer related deaths around the world.

DIDO will eliminate the need for cell phone towers

What is it? "Distributed input distributed output" or simply DIDO, is new technology that claims to have an effective broadcast range of 30 miles without a cell phone tower, and will be able to transmit data at speeds over 100 times (and perhaps 1,000 times) what is currently possible.

Why it's important: "Shannon's Law" is the long-held belief that there is a "definite upper limit to the speeds at which data that can be transmitted wirelessly." But DIDO will look to shatter that law, giving everyone who connects to it an equal portion of bandwidth to go crazy with. Gone will be cell phone towers and slow download speeds — replaced by wireless routers powered by DIDO and ridiculously fast connections for all.

The Kinect 2 revolutionizes the video game experience

What is it? An add-on to the popular Xbox 360 video game console. With the current Kinect (which made out list last year), games are played without a conventional remote control. This updated version will be able to read lips and sense emotion.

Why it's important: Similar to Apple's Siri, the Kinect 2 could revolutionize our relationship with technology. As video game technology becomes more interactive — the Kinect 2 can recognize facial expressions and the voice pitch to see how we're feeling — we can become more immersed in our entertainment experiences.

Technology that allow skins cells to be printed

Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine

Inventors: Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine

What is it? A device that prints cells directly onto a wound.

Why it's important: Although the printers are still in pre-clinical phases, the technology could be used to rebuild damaged skin and treat burns, especially of injured soldiers in combat. The device works like a desktop printer, but cartridges are filled with cells instead of ink. It's also portable, so it could be carried onto the battlefield. According to Reader's Digest, using the skin "bio printer" heals burns two weeks faster than normal.

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